46 I ! \ ß o THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 13, 1998 are not." She says it pains her that even the most modest initiatives to promote conser- vative compassion-a charita- ble tax credit, for instance- never seem to make it out of committee. "The fire, the pas- sion for these issues is just not there in the Republican lead- ership,,, she says, with a sigh. Perhaps Huffington will eventually move to the left out of sheer pique. Upon being reminded, for example, that the campaign-spending re- forms she supports so vigor- ously would have prevented her ex-husband from entering the race for the Senate, she says, "That would have been a good thing. In fact, I think there should be retroactive campaign-finance reform." Her life as a political spouse, she says, seems "like a long, long time ago," and she sounds enormously relieved that it's over. "I don't know how anyone can do it, un- less we construe the role very differ- ently. Because basically a political wife is expected to have no other view than the candidate's." In this case, though, the candidate seemed to have had no view other than his wife's. About her divorce, Huffington says she feels guilty because of the children but not angry at her ex-husband. "We married late; we had our children late; there was no other man and no other woman; this was not a bitter divorce. We had no reason for not arranging things in a way that would not damage our children any more than we already had by get- ting divorced." , N9IoRIlíD t U^,,ðJJ tl Pf ITTfD . r EYDND THIS PlllNT ,,/ ---- "u I ' h " noney, m ome. 1 ate"-a favorite word of hers-about what they believe. "We debate about everything and we really love each other," she says. "] can talk to him about my divorce and about personal things. It's Matt, the one in the middle, we don't understand. We sort of gang up on him." The bearded, gruffly charming Scheer has become one of her closest L.A. friends. (On his advice, she en- rolled her children-Christina, aged eight, and Isabella, aged six-at the same progressive private school, in Santa Monica, that one of his two sons attends.) And when I watched the show being taped live before a well- heeled, civic-minded luncheon audi- ence, it was Scheer and Huffington who gobbled up most of the airtime, flirta- tiously rebuking one another. Scheer marshalled facts and figures and fa- vored direct attacks. Huffington's much touted "effective compassion," which ar- gues that the private sector can be pre- vailed upon to solve the problems of the poor, was "Mickey Mouse," he de- clared. Huffington, who specializes in the deft aside and the one-line come- back, subtly undermined him with re- marks like "That's not what you said at dinner the other night, Bob." (Mter the show, Scheer said to Huffington, in a nettled voice, "Why did you make . . that reference to dinner? You always do that.") If Americans don't really care about the Lewinsky scandal, she asked rhe- torically at one point, then why was it on the front page every day? "Because sex sells, that's why," Scheer retorted. "Then why don't they just put Pam- ela Anderson and Tommy Lee on the cover every day?" H uffington shot back. It was a flip line, but it got a big laugh, because she had gauged the crowd just right: these were the sort of people who prided themselves on rec- ognizing tacky pop-cultural references and being above them at the same time. "I think the attacks on Arianna are irrational," Scheer told me earlier, over lunch. "They come out of envy, catti- ness. She's a serious person. I just think she's in bed with some bad people. ] went to a few of her parties and there were some very ghoulish people there." As it happens, many of the friends Huffington has made in L.A. are life- long Democrats, and some of them think she is undergoing an ideological shift. Huffington herself says, in her slinky way, that "the right / left divisions are so outdated now. For me, the pri- mary division is between people who are aware of what I call 'the two na- tions, (rich and poor), and those who I N many ways, Huffington appears to be reprising, on the dinner-theatre circuit, the role Clare Boothe Luce played so well. Luce was also a glamorous and shrewd woman, whose unremitting ambition for fame did more to make her famous than any particular talent did. Like Luce, Huffington is constantly finding new venues in which to display herself. Last month, she launched a Web site. ("In cyberspace," the press re- lease says, "nobody can hear your ac- cent.") She has managed to become, as Daniel Boorstin put it, known for being well known-or, as Buzz magazine re-